ragged, complexion sallow, eyes red, and his gums were receding terribly, bleeding openly. A set of cables had been drilled into his head like a crown. Another group had been driven into his neck, their entry points seeped with blood and pus. “Kill me, please kill me,” begged Silver quietly, barely moving his mouth. As Ashley watched a signal was delivered to his brain. The slack and exhausted face on her display contorted and screamed, howled with reckless abandon.
Ashley's eyes were instantly brimming with tears, her opposite hand went over her mouth and as the image faded to be replaced with the message; TRAITORS DIE, ONLY ON JUSTICE ONE, 2137, she shook her head in horrified disbelief. “Oh no, no no no,” she sobbed quietly.
Stephanie's arm went around her waist and she was guided to a side passage that led to the security office before anyone else, Captain Valance included, could get to her.
Jake made eye contact with Stephanie as she turned away and was reassured by her knowing nod. She'd take care of her more sensitive best friend, there was no one better on the ship. “Stop all justice feeds and archived programming,” he ordered Jason as he turned around.
“Already on it. We'll have a master copy of everything in digital quarantine. Two other people have seen that advertisement though, it's marked as high priority on at least thirty networks.” Jason was silent for several moments as he worked the semicircular holographic display in front of him, there was so much information scrolling no one else could keep up. He turned white and shook his head; “They tortured some of them to make effective commercials. I'm sorry Jake.”
“I should have seen this coming,” Jacob replied quietly, trying to help sift through the more sensitive data.
“Let's hope the few people who received that ad didn't know anyone from the Samson and just skipped through it.” Something else caught Jake's eye then and he brought up his financial information. He was confronted with a display filled with red marks. With a quick twitch of his finger he hid the financial report. “All right, have we sent all the crew's messages?”
“They're out.”
“Good, shut it down.”
“We planned for another nineteen minutes.”
“I said shut it down,” Jake reinforced firmly.
Ayan activated the kill switch for the wormhole system and it powered down. “On the brighter side, the test was a fantastic success.” The initial technical report on the wormhole systems started to come in, filling the air in front of her with electrical schematics, power readings, wormhole trajectory, compression and emitter stress data.
“We contacted over twenty thousand nodes anonymously and released our packets into the network without origin markings. The communications systems that picked them up will automatically mark everyone's messages with their origin markers and it'll look like the crew's messages came from everywhere at once,” Jason said as he confirmed that everything had been sent and accepted by at least one hypertransmitter node.
“Good. How often do large ships do that kind of thing?” Jake asked.
“All the time. Military ships, pirates, slavers, you name it. They all like to keep their positions on the hush so anonymous transmissions are a must if they have a big enough vessel.”
“I thought so. Send my congratulations to the crew and tell the flight deck to make final preparations to launch fighters. We need to clear out the raiders so we can make repairs and move on.”
“Aye,” Oz acknowledged, starting to stand.
Jake caught his arm and looked him straight in the eye. That expression was gravely serious.
Oz sat down. “Privacy mode, command seating,” he ordered the bridge systems. A visual blurring and audio obscuring field surrounded the five command seats at the centre of the bridge. “What's going on Jake?”
“There's more to the public execution situation. Wheeler. He's hunting down former Samson and Triton crew members and making an example.”
“Isn't Wheeler dead?” Ayan asked.
Jake didn't reply, only brought up a Justice One Station broadcast marked with the Regent Galactic and Order of Eden logo. As the program identification faded a gargantuan stadium appeared. It was marked with countless sponsor logos, even some of the front row attendants were covered with them. The green padded surface of the field surrounded a massive platform. Several humans hurried around, picking up what appeared to be small mechanical and organic parts from the synthetic turf.
“This is a half time show?” Ayan asked, quietly shocked and appalled as she pointed to the platform that had risen out of the centre of the field. It came equipped with a pit for musicians, trap doors, a long restraint rack with three prisoners under a black sheet and several heavily armed guards.
“Looks like it,” Jake muttered.
“What sport is the field set up for?” Oz asked, looking at the ruled sections of the field.
“Crush League Rugby.”
“I've heard of that. Cybernetics are legal and anything goes, right?”
“Yup. It's almost as popular as Hyper Pongo on the fringe,” Jake said absently. “There, there he is,” he commented as the holographic display focused in on a darkly dressed figure on stage. The caption beneath him marked him as Captain Lucius Wheeler, his grinning face looked over the tens of thousands who cheered at him expectantly. His dark hair was shorter, and he wore a Freeground vacsuit under a heavy black trench coat much like Jake's but it was impossible to identify him as anyone but Wheeler.
“So it's true, they weren't just faking him when the Saviour attacked the Triton.” Jason commented.
“They must have had a scan of him. According to the Wheeler who died here he was in Vindyne's inventory for a long time,” Jake added.
“Hello Segoma Five!” Wheeler called out as the band's pounding music subsided. The audience cheered with renewed gusto. “Welcome to the Order of Eden Half Time Show!” He waited for the applause, cheers and whistles to calm before going on. “I'm Lucius Wheeler, Captain of the Order of Eden ship Saviour and I have the pleasure of announcing the new most wanted man in the galaxy! Before I let you see the face of this traitor, let me tell you a few things about him. He was born on Freeground, an old trader station where people live hard, isolated lives and keep to themselves, hoarding needed supplies and overcharging travellers who are unfortunate enough to get caught in that area of dead space for food and repairs. I know all about it, after all, I was fortunate enough to escape about fifty years ago. This man is no brother of mine or friend to us, however. After getting kicked out of the military and assigned to a console to review manifests all day he gathered a group of friends together and commandeered an old destroyer that was about to be decommissioned. They called it the First Light and began a crime spree as pirates and looters. Eventually they were captured by Vindyne but instead of going quietly our man here released a virus into their computers and eventually escaped. That program, that very same program eventually evolved into the Holocaust Virus!” He exclaimed, outraged and thrusting his finger up into the sky. The audience was starting to rally, booing, hissing and shouting.
Wheeler let them go on, seemingly furious as he paced the length of the stage. With a surprising suddenness he stopped and whirled at the audience. “That's right! One man! One man with complete disregard for all his brethren removed the safety limiters on his personal artificial intelligence and unleashed it on the galaxy, ignoring the Eden Two Conventions and slaughtering billions! Our brothers! Our sisters! Our fathers and mothers died because this man did not want to face justice! He presents himself as a hero, a champion of justice and freedom and as soon as our own machines started slaughtering us he disappeared! But not before-” Wheeler took a breath and calmed down, addressing the audience in a conspiratorial tone. “-not before he could recruit hundreds of desperate souls. People who were unaware of his involvement, unaware that in truth he was the cause of their hardships. Most of them are aboard his new stolen ship now, the Triton, a ship he stole from a Sol Defence perimeter station. His new crew are serving him unaware that he has no way to pay them. Regent Galactic and the Order of Eden have frozen his accounts, petitioned the Core World Prime Justice to issue a galaxy wide search and destroy order and to review the evidence against him!” The crowd turned, cheering and beating a thunderous tattoo with their feet in the stands. “We didn't stop there! Today I have the pleasure, the privilege to present to you two Captains and a navigator who have willingly served the dread Captain Jacob Valance!” he whipped the sheet off of the restraint rack, revealing the stripped, emaciated forms of two women and a man.
“Oh my God, who are they?” Ayan whispered, shocked.
“The captains who retired from the Samson and bought my cargo haulers; Monica Albany of the Temperance,
